The strongest articles on engineering excellence and technical leadership — ranked by substance, not recency. How this is ranked
Telling People What to Do Is Not Leadership. It’s a Failure of System Design
Explores why real leadership means designing systems that enable team autonomy, flow, and accountability, rather than relying on …
Stop Building Silos. Start Building Systems
Explains how fragmented automation and tool silos harm software delivery, and advocates for unified engineering systems and platform …
Don’t Manage Dependencies, Remove Them
Explains why dependencies are a sign of poor system design and outlines steps to eliminate them by aligning teams, clarifying ownership, and …
Flow of Value vs Flow of Work – Misnomer or Useful Shorthand?
Compares “flow of value” and “flow of work” in Kanban, explaining why only validated outcomes count as value and stressing the need for …
Is Agile Really Just a Mindset?
Explores Agile as a disciplined system of delivery, emphasizing engineering excellence, CI/CD, observability, and system design over mindset …
Rethinking Capacity Planning
Explores how effective capacity planning shifts focus from individual hours to system-level flow, using Lean and Agile principles to improve …
Why Topic Branches Drive High-Quality Delivery
Explains how short-lived topic branches in source control improve software quality, enable modularity, speed up integration, and support …
The Estimation Trap: How Tracking Accuracy Undermines Trust, Flow, and Value in Software Delivery
Tracking estimation accuracy in software delivery leads to mistrust, fear, and distorted behaviours. Focus on customer value, flow, and …
The Definition of Done is a Commitment to Quality
Defines the Definition of Done in Scrum as a clear, shared standard for quality, ensuring increments are releasable, transparent, and …
The articles that speak most directly to technical leadership — ranked by that classification’s score alone.
Telling People What to Do Is Not Leadership. It’s a Failure of System Design
Explores why real leadership means designing systems that enable team autonomy, flow, and accountability, rather than relying on …
Don’t Manage Dependencies, Remove Them
Explains why dependencies are a sign of poor system design and outlines steps to eliminate them by aligning teams, clarifying ownership, and …
Flow of Value vs Flow of Work – Misnomer or Useful Shorthand?
Compares “flow of value” and “flow of work” in Kanban, explaining why only validated outcomes count as value and stressing the need for …
There Is No Such Thing as a "Junior" Scrum Master
Argues that the Scrum Master role requires proven mastery and real-world experience, not entry-level skills or certifications, and should be …
Great Scrum Masters Need Technical, Business, and Organisational Mastery
Scrum Masters are most effective when they combine leadership skills with technical, business, and organisational mastery to support teams, …
Stop Building Silos. Start Building Systems
Explains how fragmented automation and tool silos harm software delivery, and advocates for unified engineering systems and platform …
Is Agile Really Just a Mindset?
Explores Agile as a disciplined system of delivery, emphasizing engineering excellence, CI/CD, observability, and system design over mindset …
Rethinking Capacity Planning
Explores how effective capacity planning shifts focus from individual hours to system-level flow, using Lean and Agile principles to improve …
Why Topic Branches Drive High-Quality Delivery
Explains how short-lived topic branches in source control improve software quality, enable modularity, speed up integration, and support …
The articles that speak most directly to engineering excellence — ranked by that classification’s score alone.
Stop Building Silos. Start Building Systems
Explains how fragmented automation and tool silos harm software delivery, and advocates for unified engineering systems and platform …
Rethinking Capacity Planning
Explores how effective capacity planning shifts focus from individual hours to system-level flow, using Lean and Agile principles to improve …
The Definition of Done is a Commitment to Quality
Defines the Definition of Done in Scrum as a clear, shared standard for quality, ensuring increments are releasable, transparent, and …
Testing in Production Maximises Quality and Value
Explains how audience-based deployment and testing in production enable faster feedback, safer rollouts, and higher software quality by …
Telling People What to Do Is Not Leadership. It’s a Failure of System Design
Explores why real leadership means designing systems that enable team autonomy, flow, and accountability, rather than relying on …
Is Agile Really Just a Mindset?
Explores Agile as a disciplined system of delivery, emphasizing engineering excellence, CI/CD, observability, and system design over mindset …
Why Topic Branches Drive High-Quality Delivery
Explains how short-lived topic branches in source control improve software quality, enable modularity, speed up integration, and support …
Stop Hiding Behind Complexity and Start Delivering Continuously
Continuous delivery is achievable for any software, regardless of complexity. Success depends on investment in automation, quality, and …
Resilience is Part of the Product, Not an Afterthought
Resilience must be designed into products from the start, not added later. Build systems to detect, contain, and recover from failures, …
420 resources, newest first
Interviewing for Microsoft
A personal account of interviewing for a Microsoft Application Developer Consultant role, detailing the process, technical requirements, and …
TFS Event Handler in .NET 3.5 Part 2 - Handling Team Foundation Server Events
Guide to implementing a resilient Team Foundation Server event handler in .NET 3.5 using WCF, including service contracts, endpoints, …
TFS Event Handler in .NET 3.5 Part 1 - The Architecture
Explains designing a resilient, scalable TFS event handler in .NET 3.5, focusing on system architecture using Visual Studio diagrams for …
Creating a custom proxy class
Learn how to build a custom proxy class in .NET 3.0 for duplex communication, enabling maintainable code and easy updates when service …
Using Visual Studio 2008
Overview of Visual Studio 2008 features, including multi-.NET Framework targeting, project upgrade notes, source control tips, and new …
Becoming a better developer
Practical steps for improving as a developer, including ongoing learning, project work, community involvement, blogging, and embracing …
Microsoft's internal uptake of Team Foundation Server
Microsoft widely adopted Team Foundation Server internally, with 21 instances supporting 734 projects and 5,600 users, driving rapid product …
Deployment documentation
Outlines steps to document and improve deployment for a complex business app, focusing on automation, rollback, vendor updates, and …
The future of software development
Explores how software factories, web services, and specialised development teams can speed up software delivery, improve adaptability, and …
Solution to sub sites in Sharepoint 3.0 with Team Foundation Server
Explains how to configure Team Foundation Server to create SharePoint 3.0 project portals as sub-sites, including manual and automated setup …
Creating a managed service factory
Explains how to build a managed service factory to access and manage local or remote services across multiple servers, supporting flexible …
Creating your own Event Handler
Learn how to create custom event handlers for Team Foundation Server by inheriting from AEventHandler, implementing IsValid and Run methods, …
TFS Event Handler prototype Configuration Demystified
Explains how to configure the TFS Event Handler Prototype, covering service setup, team server options, event subscriptions, handlers, and …
TFS Event Handler: CTP 1 Delayed
The first Community Technology Preview of the TFS Event Handler is delayed, with updates on framework enhancements, current progress, and …
TFS Process Templates
Explains how Team Foundation Server process templates enable custom workflows, highlights their flexibility, and offers advice for effective …
TFS Gotcha (Exception Handling)
Explains how to handle non-serialisable Team Foundation Server exceptions in WCF by creating custom serialisable exceptions for reliable …
Creating WCF Service Host Programmatically
Explains how to programmatically create and configure a WCF Service Host in .NET, including base addresses, endpoints, bindings, and service …
Custom WCF Proxy
Explains how to create custom WCF proxies in .NET to avoid redundant class generation and object conversion when consuming Windows …
TFS Speed Problems
Advice on diagnosing and resolving Team Foundation Server speed issues, including network checks, server specifications, and common causes …
TFS Event Handler Progress
Update on TFS Event Handler project progress, focusing on resolving security issues, improving error handling in WCF services, and …
TFS EventHandler: MSMQ Refactor
Refactoring a TFS Event Handler to use MSMQ, splitting it into modular services for event queuing and handling, improving maintainability …
TFS EventHandler: Now on CodePlex
Team Foundation Server EventHandler is now available on CodePlex, with ongoing updates to use Message Queuing and a Windows Service. Source …
TFS EventHandler: Message Queuing
Explains using message queues in Team Foundation Server EventHandler to manage events reliably, ensuring no data loss during handler updates …
Team Server Event Handlers made easy
Explains a simple way for power users to create, upload, and manage custom event handlers for Team Foundation Server events using an admin …
Some thoughts on .NET 3.0 from LinkedIn
Insights on adopting .NET 3.0 for new applications, its features like WPF, WF, WCF, CardSpace, and comparisons with BizTalk, plus upgrade …
Software Development Industrial Revolution
Explores how industrialising software development with tools like Team Foundation Server boosts speed, collaboration, and scalability in …
Deploying Team Server
Discusses the challenges, costs, and benefits of implementing Team Foundation Server (TFS) for large development teams in a corporate …
.NET Framework 3.0
Explains the benefits of .NET Framework 3.0, focusing on WCF for cleaner, more efficient code and improved developer productivity in …
Windows Communication Framework Evaluation
Assessment of Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) for enterprise web services, focusing on security, compatibility, and benefits over …
Adding ToolStripPanel UI Adapter Support to the Composite UI Application Block
Explains how to extend the Composite UI Application Block to support ToolStripPanel UI adapters, enabling dynamic ToolStrip integration and …